The Sharpest Knife On The Porch

Setting a 3:00 AM alarm just to call an Uber and cancel it the second your neighbor walks out his front door is an unreasonable level of spite, which makes it an effective premise. Jessi Campbell frames the retaliation, prompted by a neighbor dumping trash into her bin, not as an embarrassing overreaction, but as standard neighborhood diplomacy.

Filmed at the Dry Bar Comedy club in Provo, Utah, the 42-minute set arrived while Campbell was a fixture on the college circuit, having earned Campus Activities Magazine’s Female Performer of the Year honors in 2015. Dry Bar requires clean material, but Campbell avoids the toothless cheerfulness that often plagues the format. Her set runs on small personal grievances and the quiet irritation of dealing with the public.

She recounts discovering an unknown man sound asleep in her assigned hotel bed, and learning from a weary CVS cashier that store policy forbids stopping shoplifters taking less than fifty dollars, prompting her to eye her own $34.97 basket. Other segments take on mothers who buy parrots, the indignity of shopping for pants, and an e-reader that silently judges her reading speed.